Tsedup had crossed the widest cultural gap I could ever have imagined and survived. Now it was my turn: I was leaving a glossy, society magazine to go to the Roof of the World. For six months I would live with his tribe as a nomad bride in the Machu grasslands of Amdo. As far as I knew, I was the first western woman ever to have done it. I was making history. My parents wanted to come with us for the first week, to be with him in case there was a threat to his safety and to be part of the reunion. He telephoned his parents to tell them we were coming. His father had ridden back from a three-day hunting expedition. That was all he had wanted to hear, he said.
One. The Reunion
He wanted the window-seat. From there he could see the carpet of cloud beneath him and the amber sun falling over the edge of the world. He sat quietly, tracing the ice crystals on the glass outside with his fingertip. It was only a few minutes until landing.
To reach his remote home we had flown east from London to Beijing and were now on the internal flight westwards to Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province. From there we would travel ten hours by road up to the Tibetan plateau and the grasslands of Amdo. Although Tsedup's family had told us we would be met at the airport, I wasn't sure that they would make it. The Tibetan lunar calendar is different from ours and I wondered if they'd got the right week. My heart hammered like a machine-gun and I struggled to suppress the butterflies in my belly. I glanced at Tsedup, who looked composed, but when I squeezed his hand I felt him shaking.
As the plane touched down, the lockers sprang open and Chinese businessmen grappled frantically with their briefcases. It was hot in the terminal and the baggage inspector was a pedantic soul. As we struggled to locate the tickets among our belongings, he stared at us suspiciously from beneath a shock of oily hair. I cast my eyes around the modest entrance hall, which was empty. As Dad pushed the last tag into the man's fist, another man approached us, grinning furiously. ‘I am your driver. Come this way, pie-'
Suddenly the swing doors in front of us burst open and a crowd of Tibetan nomads, children and monks surged towards us in traditional costume. They solemnly placed kadaks around our necks. It was the Tibetans' custom to offer a white silk stole to represent the purity of their heart. I was shocked: there were so many of them and they looked so incongruous in this place, so wild with their long hair, dark skin and jewellery, the monks serene in their vivid pink robes.
I stood still for a moment as my new relations moved around me in a blur of unfamiliar syllables and smiles. Then, slowly, I began to recognise Tsedup's brothers, Rhanjer, Tsedo, Gondo, Cumchok. Tsedup stood in the middle of the throng, stunned and grinning, until they led us to a car beside which a tiny, nomad woman stood weeping. It was Tsedup's cousin, Dolma. Tsedup took her in his arms and spoke softly to her in their dialect: there was no need to cry, he was too happy for that. I knew that he must have been feeling a tumult of emotion, but he was brought back to earth with a bump.
My father stood before him covered in kadaks. He was panicking. 'Tsedup! Where is our luggage?' he asked, and pointed to the pavement. ‘I just left it here and it's gone!' Tsedup calmed him. It is the Tibetan custom to operate smoothly and hospitably at all times, and he assured Dad that the bags were already in the cars. In Tibet Dad was going to have to learn to relax. In fact we all learnt that here, though things might sometimes seem out of control, they were always sorted out perfectly in the end.
We set off in convoy to the city. Tsedup and I took Sando's car. He was Dolma's husband and had a job as a driver in their town. Unlike his wife, who wore traditional costume, he was dressed in a shirt and slacks. Dolma had recovered her composure and sat next to him in the front chattering excitedly, with her small son on her lap. Gondo sat with us in the back, smoking and rarely talking. He was Tsedup's closest brother, only a year younger, but taller. They had been like twins when they were growing up. The last time Tsedup had seen him he had been a boy. Today, instead of tickling each other as they used to, they sat awkwardly side by side, trying to be normal after nine years of silence. Tsedup did most of the talking, jabbering questions, and occasionally Gondo would flash a smile and laugh. For most of the journey he was reserved, his tousled black hair and sheepskin tsarer a direct contrast to Tsedup's freshly chopped locks and western shirt and trousers.
We arrived at the Legend Hotel in the centre of the city after a two-hour drive through industrial wasteland. My parents had booked it through an agent in the UK and predictably, it was plush. We went to the desk to check in, followed gingerly by Tsedup's brothers and their children, who loitered uncomfortably under the enormous glass chandelier. This was not their territory. 'Are they country people?' asked the Chinese manager, as he cast his eye over their attire.
They stood fingering their massive coral necklaces, their sheepskin tsarers, which resembled large wrap-around coats with brightly patterned trim and huge red sashes tied around their hips. They provided a colourful contrast to the cream and chrome of their surroundings.
'They are our family,' I replied.
Rhanjer, Tsedup's oldest brother, a short, portly young man with mischievous eyes and a wide smile, accompanied us to our room to help us deposit our bags. Then we left Mum and Dad to sleep off the excitement of the day and went for some food. The boys took us to a small restaurant in a back-street, where an old Chinese woman sat on the pavement stirring a cauldron of broth. They laid out trestle tables and we sat down. I was in the middle opposite Tsedup. Their conversation, which I didn't understand, appeared stilted. They were either overwhelmed to see him, embarrassed at my presence or both. Either way, they didn't talk much, but the beer flowed as the overhead strip-lights sang in our ears and soon there was sporadic laughter and enthusiastic slurping of noodles. I didn't realise then, but this was the nomads' way. Their silence and composure disguised emotions deeper than I could have imagined.
That night in our bed Tsedup told me he felt as if he had been asleep for nine years. Seeing his brothers had made him feel as if he had jumped from boy to man in one day. As his mind had flooded with memories, he had also realised how much he had changed. We talked long into the night and I held him. This was only the start. Although I shared his euphoria, I suddenly became aware of the gap in our experience, for here Tsedup had a whole history of reference to draw on. I had only what he had told me in England, along with snippets of what I had read and some old photos. This was all new for me. Yet he was grasping at the threads of his old life and beginning to reconstruct a picture. I had noticed a change in him: he was now confident, taking control, guiding my parents and me, organising, explaining, translating. This was his territory and I could already feel our roles reversing. I was elated to see him so self-assured.
The next morning the family collected us from our hotel and, after we had distributed a packet of travel-sickness tablets between us, we set off for Machu, his home. Many of the nomads had been sick on the way to Lanzhou: they were not used to long car journeys or pollution. It was stiflingly hot and the sky above the city and surrounding industrial landscape was tinged a curious shade of orange. We were glad to escape.